Though U.S. airways this yr hadn’t skilled the sorts of mass cancellations and operational breakdowns that plagued the business in 2022, carriers continued to battle. A part of that is because of a document variety of folks flying. Based on knowledge from the Transportation Safety Administration, 2023 has seen among the highest-ever single-day numbers of individuals passing by way of airport safety checkpoints.
UM reviewed knowledge from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics about on-time percentages, cancellation charges, flight diversions, mishandled baggage, tarmac delays and involuntary denied boardings to find out essentially the most dependable — and least dependable — home airways within the U.S. in 2023.
This is a take a look at efficiency in every class of the information.
On-time share
On-time share is the headline statistic for airline efficiency, since whether or not a flight is late, and by how a lot, impacts each passenger on the flight. The BTS defines a flight as “on time” if it arrives on the vacation spot gate no later than quarter-hour after the scheduled arrival time.
Primarily based on BTS knowledge from January to August 2023, just one airline topped an 80% on-time share — and simply barely. Delta Air Traces had an 80.8% on-time share. Alaska slipped in at 79.9% for second place.
The worst performers had been Frontier Airways, with simply 62.1% of flights arriving inside quarter-hour of the scheduled arrival time, and JetBlue Airways, with a 65.4% on-time share. Meaning greater than 1 of each 3 JetBlue flights and practically 2 in 5 Frontier flights was delayed by greater than quarter-hour through the interval reviewed.
Flight cancellations
BTS knowledge from January to August 2023 reveals an sudden winner: Allegiant Airways canceled 0.84% of its flights through the interval. Alaska Airways was an in depth second with a 0.86% cancellation price.
Frontier and JetBlue had been once more on the backside of the rankings. Frontier had a 2.87% cancellation price, with JetBlue at 2.59%. Meaning Frontier canceled round 1 in 35 scheduled flights, whereas JetBlue canceled 1 in 39.
BTS cancellation knowledge consists of solely flights which might be canceled inside seven days of departure, after they’re probably to throw vacationers’ plans into turmoil. Airways aren’t penalized on this metric for canceling or rescheduling flights greater than every week out — which appears to have turn out to be more and more frequent.
Mishandled baggage
The extra connecting flights an airline has, the extra alternatives there are for baggage to get misplaced as baggage transfer from aircraft to aircraft. It might not be stunning, then, that airways with route methods that do not depend on funneling everybody by way of hub airports appear to carry out higher at baggage dealing with.
Allegiant takes high marks with 0.16% of checked baggage mishandled from January to August 2023, based on BTS knowledge. Put one other method, only one of each 610 baggage checked on Allegiant Airways was misplaced, delayed or mishandled. Southwest Airways positioned second (0.48%), whereas most different airways got here in at between 0.5% and 0.6%.
Two huge legacy carriers, American Airways (0.85%) and United Airways (0.84%), had been practically tied because the worst-performing airways for mishandled baggage. From a uncooked numbers stance, American mishandled essentially the most variety of checked baggage: 591,365 — a median of greater than 2,433 mishandled baggage per day.
Flight diversions
Having your flight diverted to an airport apart from your supposed vacation spot may be as confounding as a cancellation. Throughout U.S. airways that report back to the U.S. Division of Transportation, 9,722 flights had been diverted from January by way of August 2023 — round 1 in each 359 scheduled flights.
Throughout the interval examined in 2023, the airline least prone to divert a flight — each in uncooked numbers and share of flights — was Hawaiian Airways with 53 diversions and a diversion price of 0.09%. Frontier was a distant second with a 0.19% diversion price.
Share-wise, JetBlue was the worst performer with a diversion price of 0.45% — or 1 of each 218 scheduled flights. In the meantime, Southwest had essentially the most diversions in whole, with a whopping 2,293 diverted flights through the interval.
Different efficiency metrics
The final two metrics we checked out had been tarmac delays and involuntary denied boardings.
A “tarmac delay” is recorded when a aircraft has pushed again from the gate however does not take off, or has landed however does not enable passengers to get off the plane, for greater than three hours for a home flight and 4 hours for a global flight. From January to August 2023, Hawaiian was the one main U.S. airline and not using a single tarmac delay. United had essentially the most tarmac delays, 73, together with certainly one of practically six hours.
An “involuntary denied boarding” happens when an airline sells extra tickets for a flight than it has seats out there, then does not get sufficient volunteers to take a later flight. When that occurs, somebody will get bumped from the flight. Allegiant and Hawaiian each did not have any involuntary denied boardings from January to June 2023 — essentially the most just lately reported knowledge.
On the different finish of the size, Frontier denied boarding to five,782 passengers, and American did it to five,033. To place these numbers in context, all different airways mixed denied boarding to a complete of two,929 passengers.
Essentially the most dependable airline of 2023
Two airways had been practically neck-and-neck on this yr’s evaluation, however Alaska Airways barely edged out Delta Air Traces as essentially the most dependable.
Alaska was buoyed by a second-place end in on-time share (79.9%) and second-lowest cancellation price (0.86%). A modest denied boarding price and a dozen tarmac delays had been sufficient to offset a middling mishandled baggage price (0.59%) for first place general.
Delta took high marks in on-time share (80.8%) and primarily zero denied boardings. Nevertheless, its cancellation price (1.6%) was nearly double Alaska’s whereas its baggage mishandled price (0.53%) was solely modestly higher than Alaska’s.
Frontier was the clear worst performer amongst U.S. airways, with the worst on-time share (62.1%), highest cancellation price (2.87%) and exceptionally excessive denied boarding price, nearly eight occasions that of its nearest competitor.
In the meantime, JetBlue completed in second-to-last place with a poor exhibiting in nearly all metrics, together with the second-worst on-time share (65.4%) and second-highest cancellation price (2.59%). Rounding out the underside three was Spirit Airways with the third-worst on-time share (65.94%), fourth-worst cancellation price (2.08%) and fourth-worst mishandled bag price (0.57%).
Methodology
For this evaluation, we checked out a number of sorts of operations knowledge from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics that captured the efficiency of U.S. airways from January to August 2023.
For an airline to be eligible for our evaluation, it needed to be a industrial airline based mostly within the U.S. that studies knowledge to the Division of Transportation. Additionally, we ranked airways by the “advertising provider,” not the working provider. Meaning, for instance, that American Eagle flights operated by Envoy Air, Piedmont Airways and PSA Airways had been counted towards American Airways’ totals since passengers purchased their tickets as American flights.
We used percentages and charges to keep away from penalizing airways with bigger operations. For instance, American Airways could have had greater than 5 occasions as many cancellations as Frontier however operated greater than 10 occasions as many flights. So, as a share of all operated flights, Frontier had the next cancellation price.
Tarmac delays per 10,000 flights |
Denied boardings price per 10,000 flights |
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